General Tso's chicken is a Chinese-American dish of deep-fried, bite-sized chicken tossed in a sweet, tangy, and mildly spicy sauce, usually served over steamed rice. It is named for Zuo Zongtang, a 19th-century Qing dynasty general, though the dish has no real connection to him or to mainland Chinese cooking; it is widely credited to Taiwanese chef Peng Chang-kuei, who created it in the 1950s and named it for a general from his home province of Hunan. The chicken is coated in a cornstarch batter, deep-fried until crisp, then tossed in a sauce of soy sauce, rice vinegar, sugar, and chili, often with garlic, ginger, scallions, and broccoli. It became a staple of American Chinese restaurants in the 1970s and is rarely found in China itself. Variations swap in tofu or shrimp, or adjust the sauce's sweetness, heat, and acidity.